Department of Psychology, Ben Gurion University, PO Box 653, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, USA.
Trends Cogn Sci. 2015 Jun;19(6):322-8. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2015.04.005. Epub 2015 May 12.
Although we may not realize it, our brain function varies markedly from moment to moment such that our brain responses exhibit substantial variability across trials even in response to a simple repeating stimulus. Should we care about such within-subject variability? Are there developmental, cognitive, and clinical consequences to having a brain that is more or less variable/noisy? Although neural variability seems to be beneficial for learning, excessive levels of neural variability are apparent in individuals with different clinical disorders. We propose that measuring distinct types of neural variability in autism and other disorders is likely to reveal crucial insights regarding their neuropathology. We further discuss the importance of studying neural variability more generally across development and aging in humans.
尽管我们可能没有意识到，但我们的大脑功能在时刻发生显著变化，以至于即使对简单的重复刺激，我们的大脑反应在不同试验中也表现出很大的可变性。我们应该关注这种个体内变异性吗？对于一个更可变/嘈杂的大脑，是否存在发育、认知和临床方面的后果？虽然神经变异性似乎对学习有益，但在不同临床障碍的个体中，都明显存在过多水平的神经变异性。我们提出，在自闭症和其他障碍中测量不同类型的神经变异性，可能会揭示其神经病理学的关键见解。我们还进一步讨论了在人类发育和衰老过程中更广泛地研究神经变异性的重要性。
